Robert Radi Celebrates 15 Years of Product Design and Development
Beverly Hills, CA – May 13th 2008 – Robert Radi, an award-winning designer based in Beverly Hills, California, has reached a new career milestone today: 15 years of product design and development done right.
Radi still approaches every new Project with the same enthusiasm and ambition that set him apart fifteen years ago and landed him the first Product Design Account.
"I offer the constant striving to create a product that is best suited to the client, the market, and the consumer" says Radi "In order to do that, we try to understand the entire context for the design, from its place in a company's brand strategy to its tooling in the factory to its future role in a consumer's everyday life. By incorporating these elements into the design process, we are able to produce work that is relevant, intelligent, and, of course, aesthetically pleasing."
Radi is best known for some of his most commercially successful designs—including Personal Microdermabrasion and Consumer Product projects -- that have collectively generated more than $200 million in sales. Radi's entire body of work demonstrates his attention to detail, his unique sense of styling, but also his ability to come up with humorous, original concepts for consumer products. [ read more ] »
Radi Design - Web site »

Maòli has expanded its collection of unconventional furnishings with a new product that is the result of cooperation with designer Alessandro Loschiavo. After the much-talked-about success of the Walking Family series, presented for the first time last year in Paris and that recently received the Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum museum, it adds to the family of surrealistic objects inspired by the nature of the African savannah. This time in particular, the stimulus came from the observation of certain wading birds that habitually live along the shores of the great lakes in equatorial Africa. Their tall, slender legs and cautious, measured movement as they advance in shallow waters were the cues that quite influenced the shaping of the MARABÙ a side table, made entirely in Mahogany or Rose heartwoods and composed of a flat teardrop-shaped top, two obtuse-angled legs and circular base. The legs are substantially equal to thus cut wastage to the minimum in the wood-working phase, and are fixed to the top and base with a slight rotation of one with respect to the other. The result is an “ornitho-morphic” object that effectively recalls a wading bird (like the marabou stork) caught as if walking in a pond. Marabù is intended to be a homage to surrealist artist Meret Oppenheim and his 1939 work “Table with Bird's Legs”, produced in the 1970s by Simon S.p.A. as part of the Ultramobile Collection overseen by Dino Gavina. Marabù can be seen in Milan on the occasion of the coming Salone del Mobile furniture show, from 14th to 21th April next at the A+MBookstore, in the form of a curious installation called “Il Lago dei Marabù” and ironically inspired by Tchaikovsky’s celebrated ballet “Swan Lake”. This setting will also be achieved using a new special Maòli aluminium and will see the participation of Aliantedizioni.
A+MBookstore gallery
Milan, Via Tadino, 30
hours: 11–13 and 15,30-19,30
opening: Monday the 14th of April at 6,00 pm
Alessandro Loschiavo - Web site »
Maòli - Web site »
Cosmit - Salone Internazionale del Mobile - Web site »

KOKUYO Design Award 2008 Call for Entries
kuyo Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Osaka City; President: Akihiro Kuroda) has announced the Kokuyo Design Award 2008 design competition, and is encouraging all those wishing to participate to submit their user-oriented product designs. The goal of the competition is to develop excellent ideas into commercial products. Applications are accepted from April 1 to June 30, 2008.
Theme: "Carbon"
The carbon in our bodies can account for as much as 20% of our body weight. Excluding water, carbon makes up more than one-half of the composition of our body.
The earth was once covered in carbon dioxide. The first living creatures used the power of the sun to form their bodies from this massive amount of carbon. Plants continued this method, and today we live amid carbon that has accumulated since prehistoric times. Many of the natural materials we use every day are compounds of carbon; wood, paper, cloth, leather, and plastics made from fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal. Creatures ingested carbon from the atmosphere to make these natural materials.
We also use a wide range of materials formed exclusively from carbon, such as diamonds, pencil lead, carbon fibers, and the toner used in copy machines. New materials such as carbon nanotubes are also attracting attention.
The theme of this competition is carbon building block of life. This does not mean we are looking solely for charcoal designs. All materials containing carbon such as paper, cloth, various plastic products, wood, and gas or gasoline are acceptable. Please try designing a lifestyle that incorporate carbon, thinking about where the carbon came from and where it will go after use. Category:
Objects used in the office, home, or public spaces
# Stationery (include household items)
# Furniture (only chairs)
Deadline:
Works must be arrived between April 1 and June 30, 2008
Judges: Shunji Yamanaka (Jury Chair, Designer/President of LEADING EDGE DESIGN) Oki Sato (Designer/President of nendo) Fumie Shibata (Industrial Designer/President of Studio S) Manabu Mizuno (Art Director/President of good design company) Akihiro Kuroda (President, Kokuyo Co., Ltd.)
Prizes:
Grand Prize: 2 million yen
Second Prize (4 winners):500,000 yen each
Special Prize (5 winners): 100,000 yen each
*Prize amounts are subject to income tax, and is the responsibility of the recipients
Organizer: Kokuyo Co., Ltd.
Sponsors: Axis Design Magazine
For more information, visit http://www.kokuyo.co.jp/award/
Where to send your works and/or inquiries:
Kokuyo Design Award office
Ueki Bldg. 4F 5-3-4 Ueno Taito-ku Tokyo 110-0005, JAPAN
MAIL:award@mrk.kokuyo.co.jp [ read more ] »
KOKUYO - Web site »

Falmouth’s Performance Sportswear Design course produces swimwear for Celia Birtwell
When Swimathon, the world's largest swimming fundraising event, needed swimwear designs produced against incredibly tight margins and deadlines UCF’s Performance Sportswear course jumped at the opportunity. Simon Heap, creative director of Cornwall based Design for Sport explains how an existing relationship with course leaders Patrick and Jane Gottelier led to their course coming to the rescue of the charity Swimathon. “When Design for Sport was first commissioned by Swimathon to produce a swimsuit for this charity event, created by acclaimed textile designer Celia Birtwell, the client was in a state of panic. They had tried the Far East, Europe and the UK but had not found anyone that could produce a prototype and short production run within an extremely short timescale. “With our relationship with University College Falmouth in mind, we immediately contacted Performance Sportswear course leader Patrick Gottelier and tried to establish a viable timescale. Even with the Christmas holiday period falling within the schedule Falmouth came up with the goods, ahead of the deadline.” While discussing the benefit of having local performance sportswear manufacturing and production expertise, Simon said: “Design for Sport is constantly pushing the boundaries of sports design and with an academic partner like University College Falmouth we look forward to working together on even more exciting projects. "
This is Swimathon's 22nd year and our target is to raise £1.8million for Marie Curie Cancer Care and The Swimathon Foundation. Between 15,000 and 20,000 people take part every year across the UK setting themselves and their teams' various Distance Challenges.
University College Falmouth is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education. The CUC is funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council. ... [ read more ] »
University College Falmouth - Web site »